by Nate Sjogren
photography by Alan Vultaggio
Dateline – CASS CORRIDOR, DETROIT
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
Third Man Records
23 February 2024
If Extreme Championship Wrestling were a band, it would be England’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. Except on this night at Third Man Records in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, instead of chairs and tables, the bludgeons were guitar, bass, drums, and a sweat drenched microphone.
Any band that walks out on stage to AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” is planning to bring some thunder – it got much heavier from there. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs not only brought the thunder, they brought an entire storm front with them. Brutal. Glorious. And ultimately transcendent.
Brutal
Their intensity is blistering. Their metal mastery is aimed to expose, confront, and destroy their enemies. Their discontent with a stale existence is raw and contagious. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs melds the wonder and awe of the psychedelic with a gut-punching metal pulse unlike I’ve experienced in some time. I was drawn to their entreaty in “Mr. Medicine”:
Through noise, we release
Ourselves, we can be
Fearless
The frontman, Matthew Baty, set the tone, bursting onto the stage with a Brett “Hitman” Hart tank top, exuding energy that would rival any ECW personality. On stage, Baty brings a special little jolt of angst, and a Freddy Mercury vibe. He is the magnetic force that propels this band.
With each chest-crushing blow, the songs in the set built upon each other, constructing a dark tower that inevitably erupted in “The Weatherman”:
Pain. Reckoning. Spite.
Worship. Passion. Rage.
Bassist John-Michael Hedley inhabits some low frequency that conjures sciatica, because under the weight of his pocket-perfect thump, I found my body squeamish, uneasy. Like ECW, I was confronted with the fear of letting myself go too far into enjoying the brutality of the night.
But I consented. I allowed myself to unite in their frustration. I grieved. I longed. I raged. I embraced my shadow self. I reveled in the audacity of this life to purport meaning and order. And on the other side, I unexpectedly found hope.
Glorious
I was blown away. What I find so compelling about Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ live show is that they don’t just leave us pissed off at the world. It’s easy to get a bunch of people in a room and get them angry. But these guys actually uplift and speak of possibility in our often-dismal reality. “Big Rig” is a good example:
I plant a seed and wait to see what will become
of routine watering and the magic of the sun
This is how we survive….
Still everyday I feel bad energies are here
but little signs of life make matters easier
This is how we survive
Before we go, here we will leave fragments of hope
I am not just one thing. I am complex. I am a contradiction. Nobody is just one thing. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs embody the poignancy of non-dualistic thinking. There is no Yang without Yin. We cannot know our full selves without accepting all the previous versions of ourselves. If we do the work, we learn to integrate those previous versions. We learn to embrace our shadow self. We extend ourselves grace along the way and hopefully we learn then to extend it to others.
I have to be honest that I was not anticipating hope to push through the metal mayhem. But I was pleasantly shocked to find authentic encouragement in my spirit from such a raucous doom-metal outfit.
I’m a musician and a live sound engineer, which comes with a curse of the prejudice I bring into live music venues. I can often sit and critique every little aspect of the mix, and end up missing the whole experience of the show. That was not the case on this night. It is not lost on me that I was immersed in the massive sonic powerhouse of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs here in Jack White’s legendary Third Man Records’ Detroit venue. I tip my cap to the sound engineers; the mix was spot on, and the venue is a music industry marvel.
The audio barrage was perfect and relentless, just as it should be. It takes a competent and secure sound engineer to not be intimidated by two full Orange stacks ominously bookending the stage. The absolute glory and precisely dialed in sonic power of lead guitarist Adam Ian Sykes and guitarist Sam Grant is a wonder to experience. Their mutuality and complementary method displays the exact Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs ethos of functioning as an ensemble – making space for others while also offering their individual best. When you add Ewan Mackenzie on drums, the result is humble perfection.
Transcendent
I see this same ethos in what Third Man Records does, curating and elevating unheard voices in a way that honors and celebrates what they uniquely bring to the space. Jack White has doubly blessed us not only by preserving the mechanical history of “how” records are made in the physical production of the vinyl pressing plant, but also in the ethereal process of “how” records are made from creating to capturing to presenting passionate music that moves us, connects with us, and changes our world. The alignment of Third Man and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on this night delivered a transcendent experience, as though we were witness to a double rainbow.
It takes a special kind of genius to transport a whole room on an emotionally epic journey to face themselves, their pain and losses, and then return them transformed.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are as if the Rollins Band ate some magic mushrooms and then took an audience hostage, until they had genuinely spent time in self discovery and were prepared to be reborn and to do something better in this world.
There are rock shows (and I’ve been to tons of them) and then there’s a Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs show. In “The Weatherman,” Matthew Baty prophesies, “There’s a storm coming.” And it shall be known by its proper name, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.
Buy some highly collectible vinyl and try to keep up with these guys on pigsx7.com
Learn more about Jack White’s legendary Third Man Records’ Detroit location
from the horse’s mouth
Q&A: Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs Frontman Matt Baty
